


Through Glass

by yellowsuedeshoes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Humor, Meddling TARDIS, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowsuedeshoes/pseuds/yellowsuedeshoes
Summary: After a particularly hard adventure, the Thirteenth Doctor is reminded of something she thought she had locked away. The TARDIS gives her something she thinks she needs.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 26
Kudos: 56





	Through Glass

**Author's Note:**

> So here we go! My first proper fic! I'm a massive ball of scared, exited and terrified at the same time. 
> 
> This has taken a WHILE to actually get written, as it started off as something completely different, and then it grew arms and legs and ran away from me. I managed to catch up eventually so here we are! 
> 
> I also want to take a moment to thank Ambre, Lauren and Lindsay for putting up with my moaning about this fic and helping me to see that I could do this and that I'm not completely useless. You guys have been invaluable and I'll never be able to thank you enough <3
> 
> Here goes! First chapter!

“So where we off to today then, Doc?” Graham asked hesitantly.

“Somewhere better than yesterday I hope…” Ryan muttered under his breath.

“I heard that, Ryan! And yesterday wasn’t entirely my fault. Well maybe just a little? Slight miscalculation,” replied the Doctor with a tilt of her head. “Was aiming for Klinsap III and we landed on Klinsap II. During their Civil War. Not my finest moment! I’ll make it up to you all today though. Hopefully.”

“What about a nice relaxing day at the beach?” suggested Yaz. “Any beach! Something quiet and peaceful, though, we need it after yesterday.”

Both Graham and Ryan nodded in agreement, with all three companions looking to the Doctor for her answer.

“Right! Beach it is then!” she said with a smile. “Oh! I’ve got just the place, in the Yitna galaxy there is a small planet named Flontareon. Sparsely populated, and has incredible beaches that stretch for miles! The sand is creamy pink and incredibly soft, and when its sun is at its peak it turns the sea this wonderful shade of yellow. Also, when…..” the Doctor trailed off, and the enthusiastic smile slowly fell from her face as the sudden long buried realisation surfaced. 

So much time had passed since then. Or no time at all depending which way you looked at it. She’d been on beaches after then, quite a few, with no issue. So why now? Think think think….. Then it hit her. 

_“Does it need saying?”_

It was today. Well, today all that time ago or no time at all. The words she had to painfully force from her tongue instead of the three she should have said, not just standing on that beach, again, but long before then. Then _he_ said them. 

She realised she had her eyes closed and was clutching the console when she felt Graham stand beside her. “You ok Doc? You sort of stopped talking and you're shaking! What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” she replied with a short sigh. “Sorry though guys, no beach today. Just remembered I’ve got some emergency repairs to do. After yesterday. You haven’t forgotten what happened yesterday? Hope not! Anyway, plenty to keep you all occupied on here till tomorrow, loads of places you haven’t explored yet!” Her voice was rising in pitch as she was slowly backing up the stairs and out of the console room.

“Doctor!” Yaz called after her, with Ryan saying “Wait!” at the same time. 

“Won’t be long, promise!” she said more firmly than she was intending, as she backed into the corridor. She could hear her companions talk amongst themselves as she turned while letting out a shaky breath, and started walking with no sense of where she was actually going. She’d been wandering for a good five minutes trying to think of anything other than what had just happened, but it wasn’t working. Her mind was swimming while drowning at the same time. Drowning in flashes she thought she’d locked away a millennia ago.

_“There’s me”_   
_"You look beautiful”_   
_“I’m so glad I met you”_   
_“I could save the world, but lose you”_   
_“I’ve got the moves but I wouldn't want to boast”_   
_“I’m coming to get you!”_   
_“I think you need a Doctor”_   
_“That was our first date!”_   
_“Imagine watching that happen to someone you....”_   
_A broken mirror_   
_*THAT* parallel universe_   
_“Now, there is no power on this Earth that can stop me!”_   
_“Stuck with you, that’s not so bad”_   
_“Just tell her… Tell her I… Oh, she knows”_   
_“If I believe in one thing… just one thing… I believe in her!”_   
_“Oh… the stuff of legend”_   
_“You need a hand to hold”_   
_“How long are you going to stay with me?” “Forever”_   
_A war. A white wall. That beach. “Rose Tyler…”_   
_“Her name was Rose”_   
_Bad Wolf_   
_An empty street, so much pain_   
_Two of him, one part human_   
_That same beach_   
_“That’s me, when we first met”_   
_He needs you. That’s very me”_   
_“Does it need saying”_

Does it need saying. It did. It really did. He said it for him. He whispered it in her ear, but he still heard it. And it still hurt her hearts, after more than a thousand years, coming to the realisation that she hadn't hidden the pain from herself as well as she thought. 

She felt a sympathetic nudge from the TARDIS, while releasing the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding with a gasp. “I know, you still miss her too,” she whispered to the ceiling while gently patting the coral wall. 

Another nudge, more energetic than the last. The air around the Doctor shifted, with a door materialising to her right. A door she hadn’t seen since all that time ago, or no time at all.

She tried to shake her head but it wouldn't move. “Why?” she managed to choke out, but the TARDIS didn’t reply. 

The last time she was in here she was all bow ties and chin, and had asked the TARDIS to hide it but not to remove it. Never ever remove it. Just knowing it was still there, but hidden, helped her to carry on. To be better, because of HER.

She stood in front of the door, staring at it for what seemed like forever, when it was only really mere seconds that had passed, before she took a deep breath and reached for the handle. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------

“Well, that was weird,” sighed Yaz.

“When is the Doctor never not weird though?” Ryan replied with a shrug.

“Yeah I know, but that was way weirder than normal. What do you think Graham?”

“I think that my ‘Doc being weird’ meter has some lights flashing, yeah. But I also think we should do as she says and keep ourselves busy. She’ll be back soon enough, and back to her normal self. Well, as normal as the Doc can be!”

“How can you not be worried, Grandad?” questioned Ryan. “Why won’t she talk to us?”

“I never said that I wasn’t. She’ll talk to us when she’s ready, son, so just leave it at that, eh?”

“C’mon Ryan, let’s go see if we can find some kind of futuristic games room on here, or a football field! Bet there’s one on this ship somewhere! I’ll whip you at penalties,” challenged Yaz.

“Yeah, right,” Ryan said with a laugh. “What you going to do, Grandad?”

“I’m going to put the kettle on, make a nice cuppa tea, then head to the library and find myself a good book. You and Yaz go have some fun. You need it after yesterday.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------

It was the smell that overwhelmed her first, that smell that was inherently _Rose_. Vanilla and strawberry mixed with a little bit of time. 

She drank it in, not realising just how much she had craved it for centuries. It was too much and not enough at the same time. A strangled whimper escaped her throat as she managed to make it to the foot of the bed and sit with her head in her hands. 

This was a mistake. 

She slowly raised her head, but before she could stand and leave, her eyes couldn’t help but move around the room. It was exactly how she had left it so long ago, slightly untidy but with an air of organised chaos. 

Photographs taped to the wall beside the bed of long ago happy memories and smiling faces that made her hearts clench. A book on the bedside that _he_ would read to Rose when she couldn’t sleep after a particularly hard day, the last chapter unfinished. 

She could see one of _his_ old blue shirts hanging in the wardrobe as the door was left open, one that Rose thought _he_ didn’t notice was missing. A purple hoodie lying on the floor beside the wardrobe. Sheets of paper scattered on the dresser with Roses shaky attempts at her name in Gallifreyan. The pink fluffy blanket that they would use while watching crappy TV in the media room, sitting on the back of the dresser chair. 

An empty bottle of hypervodka sitting on a small round table, the bottle used as a candle holder, with a rainbow of coloured wax covering the neck and a half burned orange candle waiting to be re lit. 

She stood with her shoulders slumped and stepped over to the table, and ignited the wick using the sonic. A hint of a smile touched her lips as she remembered the significance of the bottle and why Rose had kept it in the first place.

_“Can Time Lords get drunk?” asked Rose bounding into the library, striding up to him while he had his nose stuck in a book about the history of Earth titles._

_“We can, but superior biology, remember? My metabolism filters the alcohol out of my bloodstream before it takes effect and I become inebriated. Why?” he enquired while closing the book and turning to look at her._

_“You just said you can,” she quipped back at him with that huge grin spreading across her face._

_He looked up at her over the top of his glasses, while shifting in his chair to fully face her. “And you didn’t answer my question.”_

_She shifted from one foot to the other, both her hands behind her back. “Well, since we’ve got ourselves some fancy new titles, Sir Doctor, I was thinking we should celebrate. Raise a glass to good ol’ Queen Vic!” At the end of her explanation she produced the half-full bottle and two glasses from behind her back and waved them in front of him._

_The next few hours went by in a blur. A blur of too much laughing and singing and staggering, talking to each other in over exaggerated posh accents and calling each other Dame and Sir._

_“One requires sustenance, Sir Doctor!” slurred Rose with a failed snap of her fingers._

_“My Dame will receive what she requests!” he tried to reply enthusiastically, only for the words to fall out of his mouth equally as slurred._

_He attempted to bow too quickly which only resulted in him careening forward and falling unceremoniously onto the couch. Amidst flailing limbs, a few grunts and a fight with a cushion, it took him a whole six seconds to stand up straight again._

_Smoothing the front of his jacket, he glanced over at Rose to see if she had witnessed his unfortunate fall. She was gripping onto a bookshelf with both hands, mouth wide open and her chest heaving in silent laughter._

_“What’s so funny??” he drawled, trying not to laugh himself._

_“Nothing!” Rose gasped with a shake of her head, feigning innocence. “Nothing at all, most definitely not a thing!” Laughter erupted from her once again, laughing so hard her legs gave way and she landed on her backside._

_Trying to get his legs to cooperate while giggling, he walked over to where she had landed and sat beside her. “Does my Dame require assistance?”_

_“Nah, I think this Dame rather requires her bed, actually.” She rubbed her eye while dropping her head to his shoulder._

_“C’mon then, up we get. I shall escort you to your chamber.”_

_He stood and offered her his hand to help her up. She stood but still held onto his hand. They both unsteadily walked into the corridor, gripping onto each other as if they would collapse without the other's support. They walked to Rose's room in silence, and once inside, he helped her into bed._

_“Stay with me? At least till I fall asleep?” This was nothing unusual, but in both their inebriated conditions, he didn’t think it was the best idea. “Please?”_

_Of course he couldn’t say no. He lay down beside her on top of the covers, with her shifting over and cuddling into his side._

_“Thank you,” she whispered into his shoulder._

_“What for?” he whispered back._

_“This. I think we both needed it. Blow off some steam. I should get you drunk more often, you're like a rubber doll!”_

_“Why are you still whispering?”_

_“I don’t know, why are you?”_

_He turned his head to look at her, to find she was already looking at him. It would only take the smallest of movements to reach those soft pink lips. Lips he had already tasted but never in the right way._

_Would it be so wrong to just give in? Pull down every barrier (excuses, really) that he’d put in place? He was already drawn to her like a moth to a flame, but was terrified that she would be the one that would end up getting burnt._

_He didn’t register that his eyes were closed, and when he opened them, Rose had already drifted off to sleep. With a shaky exhale, he planted a soft, lingering kiss on her forehead._

_He stayed longer than he normally would that night, leaving only minutes before she woke up._

Lost to her vivid memory, she didn’t realise someone was standing in the doorway.

“Knock knock!” Graham called out while rapping his knuckles on the door frame.

“Graham! Didn't know you were there!” She turned to face him with a slight jump. “In fact you shouldn’t be there. How are you there?”

“Sorry Doc, didn’t mean to intrude! See, I was trying to get to that big old library of yours, find myself a good book to go with my cuppa, but I could only find this door. And it was slightly open, so I thought to myself why not see what’s inside? Didn’t think it would be your bedroom, sorry again!” 

She looked up at the ceiling and mentally chided the TARDIS. She really didn’t want company right now. There was no reply.

“It’s fine, Graham, not your fault. And this isn’t my bedroom.” She sat back down on the side of the bed.

“Well I did think your bedroom would be a lot bigger. And not as pink.”

She looked up at Graham, who had moved further into the room. He noticed her eyes were glassy and a little red round the rims.

“I take it this room belonged to someone that used to travel with you?”

“Yeah,” her voice came out in a whisper. 

She couldn’t do this. She had spent years burying these memories and thoughts deep inside her mind. Why did it feel like she only lost Rose yesterday? 

Her whole body tensed up, gripping the edge of the mattress so tight her knuckles were going white. She was pushing her feet that hard into the carpeted floor that her knees were trembling, like she was trying to get it to open up and swallow her. Her whole body felt like it was vibrating down to her very core, that much so she felt like the whole ship was shaking.

“Doc? Talk to me?” Graham came to gently sit beside her on the bed so not to startle her.

She managed a tight shake of her head. Why did it still feel like the ship was shaking?

“It’s ok if you don’t want to talk. Is it ok if I sit here with you for a little while, though?”

She gave a short nod. After a few minutes, she could feel her grip on the mattress loosen and her knees began to calm. 

“I lost her, Graham,” she managed to say in a shaky breath. “So long ago that I don’t know why I feel like this right now.”

“How long ago, If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Depends how you look at it, I suppose. In your timeline, it would’ve been about twelve years ago. In my timeline, well, it's been over a millennia?” 

The ship still felt like it was shaking.

“How did you lose her? Did she...”

“No.” She snapped her head up to look at him. “She’s alive. So alive. She found me after we lost each other. Which should’ve been impossible, but she did. And we saved the Universe.” There was a hint of a smile forming at the corner of her lips. Which quickly faded. “Then I had to leave her, over there with hi…” 

Now the ship was definitely shaking.

“I thought it was my imagination earlier, but did you feel that?” she asked, jumping to her feet and running into the corridor with Graham following behind. 

As they entered the console room, all the lights were flickering and sparks were flying from the console. She rushed to the display, and immediately dismissed the readings. 

She started flicking switches and turning dials, none of which were making any difference. “Nononononono you don’t!” She yelled at the TARDIS, to which she got a reply of ‘too late.’

Ryan and Yaz came rushing into the console room, both shouting and asking what was going on.

“Hold on tight! It’s going to get a bit bumpy I’m afraid!”

“Why, what’s happening?” shouted Yaz. 

“We’re crashing ain’t we?” cried Ryan, ducking from a falling cable.

“No, not crashing. Falling. We’re falling through the Vortex. It’s happened once before and it’s not a pleasant landing. So all of you HOLD ON!!”

Why were they being pulled through to _there_? She looked at the display again to find it was already dead. Her fist pounded on anything she could reach on the console, even though it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. 

Then the Time Rotor stopped as all the lights cut out, with the ship landing with an almighty _thump_ that threw them all to the floor.

The Doctor shouted above the creeks and clangs of bits of metal falling: “Yaz! Graham! Ryan! Where are you! Are you all ok?!” 

“We’re over here! By the doors!” shouted Graham.

She rushed over to them. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but that should not have happened. Any injuries?”

“No, I think we’re good. We’re all good,” assured Yaz. “But what happened?”

“Good. That’s good you’re good. And I think I know, but I won't know for definite till I open those doors.” 

“What do you think, Doc? Where did we land?” Graham asked while moving further towards the doors.

“Graham no! I’m the only one that’s going to be walking out that door right now. We’ve just fallen through the Time Vortex and the TARDIS is dead. Well, for the next twenty-four hours if we are where I think we are. But I don’t know _when_ we are. What I do know is that we really should not be here. And it’s also impossible.”

The three of them looked at each other confused as the Doctor reached up to open the door.

She whispered “Why?” to herself for the second time today, before pulling open the door and stepping out.

Oh she knew where they were alright, the familiar buzz of zeppelins overhead and the scent that screamed _parallel world._ And she knew exactly where they’d landed.

The TARDIS was hidden by trees and bushes at the very bottom of a garden that belonged to a very familiar house. She took another few steps forward, though she knew she should turn and get back into the TARDIS. Her three companions slowly followed her out the doors, and she could hear them whispering to each other that it all looked ok.

She raised her hand behind her to quiet them as her eyes landed on a car in the driveway. It wasn’t the car that drew her attention though. It was the two figures standing beside it that made her breath catch in her throat.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE let me know what you think. This is my first proper published fic, any and all feedback is welcome!
> 
> I know where I'm going with this story, and tags will be updated by chapter. The rest of the story should be a lot easier for me to write as I know where I'm going (hopefully!).


End file.
